


by any other name

by wildewoman_22



Category: Mad Men
Genre: (mostly), Canon Compliant, Drabbles, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-30
Updated: 2017-03-30
Packaged: 2018-10-06 08:57:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10331063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildewoman_22/pseuds/wildewoman_22
Summary: Joan and Lane, and the language of flowers.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I'm apparently incapable of writing anything other than short little bursts lately! These were inspired by a conversation about different flower meanings and they are set in chronological order through canon.

**yellow rose:** _joy, promise of a new beginning_

The snow is falling thick and soft, piling up in the corners of the windows of the Pierre. Joan looks up from her papers long enough to admire the starkness of the flakes against the inky sky. The city is eerily quiet; the calm before the storm of New Years Eve celebrations tomorrow night will bring. Joan thrills to it – there’s always been something about imagining a stretch of untainted time and leaving old mistakes to the past that’s appealed to her.

She gives the list of figures in her hand a final once-over and nods with satisfaction. The main room of the suite is empty save for Lane, bent over the desk with his glasses barely perching on the tip of his nose. He’s humming a bit to himself, so tuneless that she can’t even recognize the song.

“Did Peggy go home?” she asks.

“She left here in a terrible mood… something about visiting her mother,” Lane says with a smirk.

“I know the feeling.” Joan hands him her papers; final projections before the new year. “The updated numbers you asked for.”

She goes to pour them both a drink and passes him the glass with a knowing smile, feeling a burst of giddy energy course through her.

“These – this is very encouraging,” he declares. “We may be looking at actual offices sooner than we thought.”

“You really want to leave all this?” she teases, gesturing around the hotel room.

"There’s only so much of Mr. Crane in a confined space a person can take," he says. 

Lane’s tie is loosened around his neck for once; she’d taken her heels off hours ago. She curls the toes of her stocking feet into the carpet like a child, sipping her drink thoughtfully.

“I’ve got to say, this is nowhere near what I had in mind for 1964,” says Joan.

“Well, it’s nice to see that we might not be completely crazy for doing this.” He holds up his drink as if he's toasting the thought.

“You say that now.” Joan traces a finger around the rim of her glass, a playful smile creeping across her face. “It’s exciting though, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” he says, grinning widely. “It really, really is.”

 

 

 **tansy** **:** _hostile thoughts_

Joan discreetly follows him to his office after the partners’ meeting, letting the door close behind her with an ominous click. She clears her throat, proud for allowing only the bare minimum of sarcasm to creep into her tone.

“Yes?” says Lane tiredly, glancing up from his clipboard.

“Lane, you’re distracted,” Joan says as lightly as she can manage.

“I beg your pardon,” Lane gapes over at her, frowning.

“You asked me to bring up layoffs in the meeting.” Her long white hands fold together at her front; her voice shiny, impenetrable steel. “I was expecting you to actually back me up when I did. You didn’t have much to say in there.”

Lane has been drifting in and out all week; one minute he's there, the next he's staring blankly into space or scribbling away on his notepad. She'd called his name twice to get his attention this afternoon. One would think the company potentially teetering on the brink of financial collapse would be urgent enough, but instead it's as if he's mentally checked out. 

“Whatever you were doodling was much more interesting,” she says icily.

Lane sputters, face reddening in annoyance. “Are you going to read my notes aloud to the class, too? Get on with it, then,” he bites out.

She blinks at him, innocuous little smile curling at her lips. “Don’t work too hard, Mr. Pryce,” she says through her teeth.

Joan sees herself out.

An hour later, a rap on her door pulls her from her thoughts.

“Yes?” she says. Lane appears, sheepishly holding out a mug of tea; one spoon of milk, two sugar.

“Peace offering?” he says.

“Come in,” she says.

He moves to set the cup on her desk, ducking his head remorsefully. It’s only then that she notices how drained he looks under the harsh fluorescents, wilting like a deflated balloon. Joan feels her heart pound when she spots what looks like the faint outline of a faded bruise, blooming yellow and wide on his temple. She wonders why she hasn’t seen it sooner and feels ashamed. _What’s happened,_ she thinks. _How did you get hurt like this?_

“You were right,” Lane says, looking down at the floor. “I haven’t really been… myself, lately. With all this mess here, and - well, it-" he flushes a little, waving a dismissive hand. "I’m afraid I’ve been terribly useless to you.”

She eyes him thoughtfully from behind her mug. “Scarlett is useless to me,” she intones. 

His answering laugh is a sharp bark, like he’s surprised by the sound of it reaching his ears. He brightens, eyes sparkling; he instantly looks so much younger that Joan finds herself wondering what he must have been like as a boy, all plucky and proper.

“Thank you for the tea,” she says, in a way that means _I’m sorry, too_.

He nods, because he knows.

 

 

 **holly:** _domestic happiness_

"He's got quite the grip." The corner of Lane's mouth turns up in a smile, his pinky finger wrapped in Kevin's chubby fist.

"Mmm, little man," Joan coos. She feels light, almost. She hadn't realized how badly she'd needed this; she's been so out of sorts since the baby. Pushing past the embarrassment of having come all the way to the office over an idiotic joke, it just feels so good to talk and gossip and _laugh_ like this with someone.

(And she isn't being replaced after all, they aren't getting rid of her, she's still  _needed._ The thought makes her dizzy with relief.) 

"I bet you cause all kinds of trouble, hm?" he whispers to Kevin, looking up at her with wistful eyes. "It's been so long, I forgot how small they are when they're this new," he says quietly. She remembers, then, that his son is an ocean away.  

"Then they're little people before you know it," she murmurs. Lane simply nods, staring down at the baby in his arms.

"He's a fine boy," he says tenderly, passing Kevin back to her. 

Joan feels tears prickling her eyes again and wants to curl up and hide from the shame of it. Everything sets her off lately; she wonders every day if she'll ever be completely herself again. 

"I'm sorry," she says. "I'm a fountain these days." 

"There's no need to be sorry," Lane soothes. "It's quite all right." 

She tries unsuccessfully to swipe at her eyes without jostling the baby, and Lane reaches out to help brush a tear from the crest of her cheekbone. His fingertips linger for a moment on her skin - so briefly it might just be her imagination. He's looking at her with such open kindness she can hardly stand it, and suddenly it's all wrong. The realization is a brisk slap in the face. It's the sort of scene she used to imagine, scenarios she'd daydreamed a thousand different ways when she was young and hungry and foolish. _Just the three of us_. 

But Lane is not her husband, Kevin's father is half-drunk down the hall, and Joan will go home to an empty bed. 

"I should get going," she says, breaking the spell. "It's almost naptime." 

 

 

 **sweet pea:** _pleasures_

 Joan stands under the hot spray of the shower, smoothing her hands over the planes of her body. It’s been weeks, maybe months since someone has touched her; pure raw need aches behind her eyelids, between her legs. As the water streams steadily around her, the tension melts from her shoulders, her joints relaxing.

 She crawls into bed in her favourite silk robe, damp skin against cool sheets. She slowly, _slowly_ begins to press the flat of her palm against herself, relying on some well-worn fantasies to get her there. Her breath grows ragged, fingers sliding, slippery, spreading herself open. The desperate feeling is building and burning low inside of her; she focuses on it, concentrating on chasing that high.

Joan sighs, her mind conjuring up random, fevered images of callused hands parting her thighs and cupping her breasts. She thinks about being tipped back onto a plush bed by a faceless man.

Suddenly, there’s a flash of memory: Lane’s determined eyes, his pupils blown, leaning towards her on his office couch. With a deep shudder Joan thinks about it, and then thinks some more; the insides of her thighs are slick and quivering. She thinks about the soft, shy press of his lips, the insistence of his hand on the curve of her waist.

His knuckles had been bloody and torn. He’d smelled like sweat, flushed and dishevelled against her, the muted wisp of his cologne clinging to his clothes.

Joan's frantic with it, hips rolling as fast as her heartbeat, legs trembling and back arching as she – as she –

It takes almost no time at all.

She turns over and buries her face in the pillows. Her cheeks are flushed, not in relief; burning up inside with an odd sort of feeling that she can’t put a name to.

 

 

 **zinnia:** _thoughts of absent friends_

Three days after they take him away, Joan silently tasks herself with going through his office and packing up his things. No one has been in the room since. The closed door has been causing conversations to halt; an awkward beat, a breath, a bow of the head as people pass by.

It isn’t that she particularly _wants_ to be the one to do this - the sight of the empty nameplate floods her with dread, hot and slick, creeping up her spine – it’s the terrible wrongness of a stranger going into his space, touching his belongings.

It wouldn’t be right; he deserves ( _deserved,_ she thinks, chest aching) to be more than a custodian’s errand.

She holds her breath for a moment upon opening the door. Everything is exactly the way it always was, except for the half-empty bottle of liquor sitting squarely in the middle of the desk. She thinks about how carelessly the glass dangled from his fingers three days ago, his words to her more careless still. If she closes her eyes she can see his retreating back in the doorway, the tense lines of his shoulders. _Bon voyage._

Joan approaches the desk slowly and picks up a heavy leather folder to place in the box. There’s a crumpled, loose sheet of paper resting underneath it; it’s been folded and unfolded several times, the creases deep and sharp. She can see where ‘ _Mrs. Harris’_ is hastily crossed out, where ‘ _Joan’_ has replaced it in blocky cursive _._ Taking the sheet in trembling hands, she walks back into her own office, briskly locking the door behind her.

_Joan:_

_I think you ought to choose Hawaii. The ocean would be simply magnificent._

_-Lane_

Spreading the paper flat on her desk, she reads it again, twice, three times. She traces a finger around the ringed stain left from his glass, stares at the sensible strokes of the ‘ _L’_ and the ‘ _i’_ that he’d neglected to dot, and then she turns around and retches into her wastebasket.

That night, she takes Kevin to bed with her for the first time in months, cradling the familiar weight of his tiny body close to her chest underneath the covers. His fluttery little heartbeat calls out to her; she lets her breathing slow to match it until there's nothing but the two of them, holding on together.

Joan closes her eyes and dreams of the sea, blue and wide and open.

 


End file.
